by Lucy Vine
‘OK,’ she says a bit more warmly, and gives me a hug. ‘It’s good to see you, little sister.’ She pulls away and examines me critically. ‘You look dreadful though.’
‘Well, I have just been on a plane for eleven hours,’ I say, relieved I seem to be out of danger. Thank God she doesn’t hate me.
‘Eleven hours couldn’t have made that outfit any worse, Ellie. I think I’ve seen the local hobo in something very similar.’
‘Then that hobo is likely very warm and comfortable,’ I say, grinning.
She gestures at me to follow her into the kitchen and I abandon my bag by the front door.
I’ve never been here before, never even seen pictures, and I feel overwhelmed. It’s impressive, mostly because of the size, but also because of the high ceilings and blinding light everywhere from the oversized windows. There’s a lot of white. Lots of big, white space. Immaculate, but sparsely furnished. Very L.A.
‘This place is amazing,’ I say, my voice a little awed and Jen waves away my compliment.
‘How was your flight?’ she asks, more polite than I’m used to.
‘Oh, er, it was fine,’ I say. ‘It’s so great to see you, Jen. You look, gosh, well, you look . . . thin.’
‘Thank you,’ she says, pleased. I say nothing.
‘ELLIE!’ a familiar Milly voice shrieks as she comes running in, barrelling into me for a hug.
I laugh, pick her up, and then immediately put her down as my back groans in protest. She has grown a lot, lengthened in all directions. The changes really suit her. Her skin is glowing, her hair swishing bluntly around her shoulders, and she’s wearing a T-shirt that declares her to be a Power Rangers fan. Power Rangers are still a thing? That is amazing.
‘Wow, look at you, you’re so tall!’ I say, feeling like such a clichéd aunt.
‘I’m taller than all the boys in my grade,’ she says smugly with just a trace of an American accent. And then she adds – still smug – ‘They all hate me.’ She steps back from her hug and regards me with the same critical eye her mother always gives me. ‘What are you doing here?’ she says, curiously.
‘I’ve come to see you!’ I say, enthusiastically, feeling like a fraud. It’s not the whole reason, but Milly is a huge part of why I’ve come. It’s not just to escape my problems, it’s to see the people I love. And looking at her now, I can’t believe how much I’ve missed in the last year. She looks like a person now. Does that sound weird? The last time I saw Milly, I’m sure she wasn’t really a person – she was a child. Now I can sort of see how she will look as a grown-up. It’s bizarre.
‘Stop staring at me, you creepo,’ she says, and then takes my hand, leading me out of the kitchen and into the living room, where she is building a fort that she says is called ‘Guantanamo Bay’. She even pronounces it right. I glance over my shoulder. Jen has turned away and is leaning against the sink, like she needs its support to stand.
When I wake up around nine the next morning, my first thought is surprise at being awake. Because being awake, means I’ve been asleep. I thought for sure the events of my recent shit-show of a life carousel-ing around my brain on a loop would result in all night, red-eyed ceiling analysis. But I’ve slept. Deeply. As I try to sit up, the disorientation hits me. I briefly wonder where I am and it crosses my mind that I am dead. That this is purgatory. A very white purgatory. And then it comes back to me – not dead, just in L.A. I look excitedly round the room at the daylight pouring in through the thin white curtains. It’s a nice room I guess, but sparse, like the rest of the house. Just a chest of drawers and a forlorn-looking wicker chair in the corner. Oh, and my enormous, L.A.-sized bed, of course. I remember now, climbing in half asleep last night, and crawling for hours, desperately trying to find the middle.
Right. I throw the sheets off me. I need to start this American adventure.
As I pad softly downstairs, I spot Jen and Andrew in the kitchen. Andrew wasn’t here when I arrived yesterday and no one mentioned him, so I didn’t either. But there he is, looking the same as ever; grey from head to toe.
I realise immediately that I have walked into an argument. They are speaking in furiously loud stage whispers and Jen is using her seriously angry voice. As opposed to her day-to-day angry voice.
‘I’m sick of it, Andrew,’ Jen is hissing.
‘What do you want me to do, then?’ he hisses back.
‘Anything!’ she whisper-shrieks, ‘Literally anything would be better than this. You need to tell Larry that you can’t keep—’
I clear my throat.
They both look up at me, like squirrels caught stealing nuts.
Andrew clears his throat. ‘Er, hello, Eleanor. How are you?’
‘Good morning,’ I say awkwardly. ‘Sorry to drop in on you like this, Jen told me not to. I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you . . . ’
He shrugs, he is not interested.
‘I’m going to work,’ he barks, picking up his bag and nodding at me again as he stomps to the front door
I haven’t seen him since the funeral, over a year ago.
‘It’s a Sunday, isn’t it . . . ?’ I say quietly to Jen as the door slams behind him.
She doesn’t look at me as she moves around the kitchen, tidying breakfast things away and wiping surfaces.
‘He works on Sundays,’ she says, her voice shaking almost imperceptibly. ‘He works every weekend.’
She stops for a second, her back to me, hunched. And then she straightens up and I see she is putting her defiant Jen mask back on.
‘Milly’s in there watching The OC, if you want to join her?’ She nods behind me and then looks away again quickly. The room is thick with tension as I hop from one bare foot to another. Jen doesn’t like to be asked if she’s all right. She keeps gabbling. ‘She says you recommended the series?’
‘I did,’ I say shortly, walking over to the sink and picking up my glass from last night to wash up.
‘Don’t do that,’ she snaps at me, striding over and snatching it from my hand. ‘I don’t need your help.’
‘OK,’ I say, feeling stupid.
She puts it down, and starts talking again. ‘Milly loves it. She says she’s going to marry Seth Cohen. I told her he’s like forty now but she called me a liar and stormed out. I’m not sure Summer is a very good influence on her.’
‘No, I don’t suppose she would be,’ I agree.
‘Right,’ she says, turning back to me. ‘Do you want breakfast? What shall we do today? Do you want to go shopping? You need sorting out.’ She gestures with disgust at my outfit.
‘These are my pyjamas,’ I say defensively.
‘You can’t tell the difference,’ she says as she barges past. I follow her into the living-room, where Milly is eating some kind of bowl full of chocolate blobs with chocolate milk in front of the TV. I say nothing but silently judge Jen’s parenting skills.
‘Clean yourself up, we’re going shopping,’ she informs her daughter, throwing a cloth in her direction and stomping out.
Not looking away from the screen, Milly dabs ineffectively at her Iron Man T-shirt.
I sit down next to her. ‘Robert Downey Jr. is hot, isn’t he?’ I say conversationally. She looks up at me, brown cereal gunk leaking out of the corner of her mouth.
‘What are you talking about?’ she says, shaking her head, exasperated.
‘Iron Man? He’s hot?’ I point at her shirt.
She gives me a withering look. ‘His name,’ she explains slowly, like I’m a moron, ‘is Tony Stark. And it is irrelevant how warm he is because he’s saving the world loads. Duh.’
‘Gotcha,’ I nod.
‘Hey,’ she says, thoughtfully, finally turning away from Seth’s onscreen twitching. ‘What do you think cat food tastes like?’
The day is pretty much more of that. We go to the famous Rodeo Drive, which is amazing and I ooh and aah over the posh brand names. I can afford nothing, obviously, and I’m disappointed to find none of the sales
assistants try to Pretty Woman me. They just keep asking how I’m doing today and instructing me to have a nice day. I know the polite thing to do is just keep smiling, but I’m afraid to show them my un-whitened teeth in case they faint with horror. Maybe this is why Brits have an unfriendly reputation, because we come to this glossy place and feel too insecure to smile.
It’s nice though. Hanging out with my girls. We bicker constantly and easily and Jen keeps threatening to turn the car around, even when we’re not driving. But it’s nice. I’ve missed them such a lot.
I never blamed Jen for moving away right after Mum died – I wanted to go, too – but it’s been hard not having her and Milly around.
We stop for lunch and sit outside a bistro, eating bits of lettuce and admiring the waitress-cum-actresses who all look like Margot Robbie. I feel lighter than I have in weeks. There is nothing to make you feel that the world is a good place than the warmth of the sun on your face and knowing you don’t have to be back at work for another week.
Maybe I really could live here, I think again. Maybe I could. I could get my teeth done, be a friendlier person who smiles at strangers, and spend my days in the sunshine, a million miles away from the gloom of England. It might be great. It might be the adventure I’ve been looking for. A square-shouldered bronzed man strolls by, smiling in our direction. There’s another reason to stay.
On the drive home, Milly falls asleep in the back and I try to broach the subject of her father.
‘Andrew seems busy,’ I say carefully, watching Jen out of the corner of my eye. She revs the engine but says nothing, so I continue. ‘Was everything . . . all right, this morning, when I came down?’
‘Fine,’ she snaps, hitting the steering wheel and muttering, ‘Fucking traffic.’
We’re sitting in a queue at a red light and I touch her arm, tentatively. It feels cheesy and forced so I stop. Looking straight ahead, I say, ‘You know I’m here if you want to talk?’
She rolls her eyes. ‘You people just love talking, don’t you? Not everything needs analysing and dissecting, you know. I’m fine, we’re fine, everyone’s fine.’
I fall silent, but then the words in my mouth get the better of me and I ask the question: ‘Jen, are you happy?’
She whips around, wide eyed and instantly angry. ‘God, Ellie! What is this obsession you have with being happy? You know this is just life, don’t you? Life is fucking shit and everyone just gets on with it. Why do you think you’re so special? Why do you deserve to be happier than anyone else? No one is happy, that’s not how life works. You get on with it and then you die in pain, just like Mum did. Being happy is a bullshit idea and you need to let go of it.’
Her face is red, and she looks like she might cry.
‘That makes no sense,’ I mutter. ‘What’s the point of anything if you’re not happy? That’s not how life should be, that’s not something you should just accept. Life shouldn’t make you cry in traffic.’
‘Fuck off,’ she snaps. ‘I’m not crying, I’m just allergic to pricks. If you don’t shut up, my face will probably start swelling up, and then my throat will close and I will die. Do you happen to have an epi pen on you? I don’t carry one around with me because I don’t usually encounter this much prick.’
‘OK!’ I surrender, checking Milly is still snoring obliviously in the back. Her mouth hangs open and I fight an impulse to throw something in there. ‘Fine, I won’t ask if you’re happy ever again. But –’ I chance one more sentence ‘– you know where I am if you do need to talk about anything.’
She pauses now, and turns to look at me, searchingly. I wait, wide eyed and hopeful. Here we go, maybe I got through to her. She speaks. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you have a huge head? Like, a HUGE head? You’re totally out of proportion.’
I roll my eyes and the lights turn green.
That night the jetlag finally catches up with me, and I lie staring at the unfamiliar ceiling of this strange empty room for hours. I think again about my sister. All this pressure on me to achieve what Jen has; a husband, a child – and I can’t imagine anything more stifling and unhappy. But maybe she is happy. Maybe she likes the conflict. Maybe the argument this morning was just a one-off. She’s made it clear she doesn’t want my help or advice, and I can’t do anything if she refuses to talk to me. I’m a guest here, a visitor who has popped my head round the door of her life very briefly and soon I’ll be gone again.
I sigh dramatically and heave onto my side. I wish I had something to distract me. I brought my sketchbook but it’s in my bag downstairs. I’m not sure I have the energy to climb for miles out of this bed to get it. I think about the painting I’ve just started, sitting in my room in TS, waiting for me to get back to it. My hands itch. It’s good, I know it is. It’s a face, but I don’t know whose face just yet. It feels familiar, there’s something in the eyes, but I can’t tell just yet. I feel the rush of excitement in my stomach. It’s that feeling I always used to get when I was painting something great. I’ve been sketching non-stop, too. If I do stay out here in L.A., I don’t want to let go of that feeling. Rediscovering my art has been the one decent thing to come out of the last few disastrous weeks.
By 3 a.m. I’ve had enough and I get up to quietly explore this ridiculously huge place and find my sketchbook. I tiptoe out of my room feeling weird and like I’m in the Upside Down universe. It’s exciting being awake in the middle of the night in a new house, but scary too. It’s that sense of being in your school after hours.
Everything is silent and still, and I head for the kitchen for water. But as I reach for the tap, I stifle a scream when I spot a figure standing there in the dark.
It’s Jen. She’s standing unmoving by the window, staring out. Is she sleepwalking? I take a step towards her and she glances over.
Her face crumples when she sees me and suddenly she is properly crying. Jen, who does not cry. Jen, who I’ve never actually seen cry. Jen, who didn’t even cry in front of me when Mum died. Jen. She’s now sinking into a chair and sobbing as she collapses into herself, curling up like she’s in physical pain.
I’m by her side in seconds, and I drop to my knees beside the chair, circling my arms around her. She leans into me and continues to cry.
I tighten my grip, realising how pathetically selfish I’ve been.
Bickering with friends? A few bad dates? How did I for even a second think those were real issues? I’ve been so self-involved that I didn’t realise my sister was really suffering.
We sit there for a few minutes as Jen cries herself out. Every time I think she’s about to stop, she starts again, and my arms are aching by the time she finally calms down. I still don’t say anything, but I can tell she is almost ready to.
‘I’ve been thinking, thinking about leaving him,’ she says, her face still buried in my shoulder.
‘It’s just . . . this isn’t the life I wanted. Andrew works all the time, I never see him. Milly barely knows who he is. They bumped into each other yesterday and she actually screamed in fear. I thought moving out here would make everything better, that we’d be able to spend more time together, but it’s worse. I don’t know anyone and I have nothing to do. I even tried to make friends with the cleaner but she said I was mean. I feel like I’ve settled for a life I didn’t know I was signing up for. I don’t know what to do. I think I need a break.’
I pause. Poor Jen. This is why she didn’t want me to come, she didn’t want me to see how sad she was. ‘Then have a break,’ I say quietly. ‘You and Milly, come home with me. It can be a belated birthday surprise for Dad, you know he’d love it. Have some space for a couple of weeks and figure out what you want.’
She’s looking down and I don’t know what she’s thinking.
I continue, ‘I know you think life is meant to be a certain way, and follow a pattern, but it doesn’t have to, Jen. You can be on your own. It’s not bad like you think, I love it.’
She wipes her face and looks at me. ‘I’m not
making any decisions now. Don’t start telling people I’m your sad sack single mum sister,’ she says fiercely. I nod emphatically.
‘I never would,’ I say, even though I might a bit.
She goes on. ‘But I think maybe you’re right. Maybe a break is what I need. Milly’s off school for the next couple of weeks anyway for Easter, so it would be a good time to come.’ She sounds stronger, and then her voice cracks. ‘I still love him though, Ellie.’
I pull my sister close and she starts quietly crying again.
This is probably the shortest holiday I’ve ever had. Barely three days after arriving in sunny L.A., it’s time to go home. After our middle of the night crying session, Jen came and slept in my bed, and when we woke up late, Milly was in with us too.
Lying there in the giant bed, we made arrangements for flights. Milly squealed excitedly about planes and seeing Grandpa’s eyebrows in real life.
There’s a fee to change my return journey, but it’s uncomplicated enough, and I pack my things, feeling surprised at how ready I am to leave L.A. after such a short trip. Andrew had already left for work by the time we got up this morning, so Jen rang him at the office to break the news. It sounded pretty bad through the wall. I couldn’t hear what was said, but the muffled shouts and Jen’s red eyes were enough to know it didn’t go down well. I feel so terrible that I haven’t been here for her. Jen was going through this shitty time and I’ve been so wrapped up in my own dumb problems, I never even thought to probe her properly about Andrew. I am a bad sister. The guilt zigzags through my stomach.
Jen appears in the doorway, now, with her suitcase, and she’s smiling. I realise I haven’t seen her genuinely smile in ages. God, maybe not since before Mum got ill. And even with the swollen eyes and the giant under-eye bags, she looks beautiful.
‘I’ve checked us in online,’ Jen confirms, wandering in. She casually pulls a top I’ve already packed back out of my bag. ‘You know, this isn’t so ugly,’ she says, almost kindly. She turns it round. ‘Oh wait, no, it’s hideous,’ she adds, grinning and throwing it back on top of the pile. ‘Hurry up, we’re ready to go and the car’s on its way.’